Pulmonary Artery Sarcoma Mimicking Pulmonary Thromboembolism: Integrated FDG PET/CT

Abstract

4Department of Thoracic Surgery, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. ulmonary artery sarcoma is a rare malignancy arising from the mesenchymal cells of the intima of the pulmonary artery [1]. It is frequently misdiagnosed as pulmonary thromboembolism, although chest CT can help differentiate pulmonary artery sarcoma from pulmonary thromboembolism by showing a low-attenuation filling defect occupying the entire lumen of the proximal or main pulmonary artery, expansion of the involved arteries, or extraluminal tumor extension [2]. As much as the standardized uptake values (SUVs) at 18F-FDG PET have helped in differentiating between benign and malignant tumors [3, 4], visualization of a low-attenuation filling defect within a pulmonary artery on contrast-enhanced chest CT can be suggestive of a malignancy, such as pulmonary artery sarcoma, if the lesion shows high FDG uptake at PET. We present a case of pulmonary artery sarcoma that showed high FDG uptake on integrated FDG PET/CT.